


And So We Three, Dreaming

by RedSavant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU - Sburb at Ten Sweeps, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Forgiveness, M/M, Multi, Pervasive Language, Quadrant Confusion, Tentabulges, Threesome - F/M/M, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:57:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSavant/pseuds/RedSavant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Left alone with his memories, Eridan is given a final chance at forgiveness.</p><p>This piece uses tentabulge designs by Tumblr user Xenosexual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And So We Three, Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saccharineSylph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saccharineSylph/gifts).



> This story contains explicit sexual acts between a trio of consenting adults, as well as explicit descriptions of alien genitalia. If any of the above offends you, please do not read further. All characters depicted are twenty years old. Elements of this entry are taken from Feferi: Report to Eridan (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004367).
> 
> This fic owes a hell of a lot to SaccharineSylph’s Ask The )(eiress blog! http://asktheheiress.tumblr.com/

**== > Eridan: Remember.**

 

cuttlefishCuller [CC] began trolling caligulasAquarium [CA]

CC: W)()()()()(-E-E-E-E-EW.  
CA: fef are you in  
CC: Yea)(…  
CA: that took forevver  
CA: i was gettin wworried kinda

Your name is ERIDAN AMPORA, and that is the UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE FUCKING SWEEP.  Your palms still sting from the sharp bite of your nails, and your fingers are still bent and sore from the fists you had clenched them in to keep yourself from asking for status updates every five seconds.  But now that she’s in, you relax, letting out a deep breath as you slump back in your chair.  A splash of purple on the ceiling catches your eye and you studiously ignore it; no great military campaign was ever won without sacrifices, sometimes painful ones.  There will be time to grieve later, but if there isn’t, you don’t think you’ll be very upset about it.  It would only be awkward trying to eulogize him with him hanging around in his new bloodpurple glowing state, anyway, judging you with his eyes.  But she’s replied, and you lean back in to read her exquisite tyrian text.

CC: But Sollux finally came t)(roug)(, and now I believe t)(e full c)(ain is complete!  
CA: man that guy  
CA: hes a fuckin drama machine it is fuckin pathetic  
CC: YOUR STUPID FIS)(Y FAC-E IS T)(-E DRAMA MAC)(IN-E T)(AT DO-ES NOT)(ING BUT W)(IN-E AND GLUB.

Her response is immediate and something about it feels off.  She’s almost never so high-strung – well, no, she is – but something in particular about this response puts a tang of metal in your mouth, and makes your thoracic cavity feel tight  _tell him to go away.  I don’t even have the energy for thith_.  As if you needed more complications… pushing any thoughts of the landscraping mustardblood filth from your head, you swallow hard and unclaw your fingers, which have sought refuge in your palms again.  It’s all or nothing now, and your hands fly across the keyboard with painful care.  Her next words give you hope  _it didn’t work then and it won’t work now_ , and you rise to your feet as Trollian logs the keystrokes of her unsent message…

CC: I t)(ink it is not really necessary for me to be your moirail anymore.

Stunned.  You’re dimly aware of your knees giving out, and your chair goes rolling away and fetches up against the wall, its wheels dragging through the slowly congealing film on the floor.  It’s only a second to bring it back, but you can feel your collapsing and expanding bladder-based aquatic vascular system thumping painfully hard as you race to sit back down and formulate some sort of reply.  Three words are the most coherent you can get, but you find it hard to care; your hands are shaking visibly, and you can’t seem to steady them  _shaking with fury this time, aching to slap the smug grin off of his face, ball up his shirt, slam him against the wall and hurt him until he never stands up ever again_ , but you try as she feeds you some bullshit about being ‘regular friends’.  You have to fix this.

CA: no  
CA: please dont  
CA: look im bein serious here dont do this

You close your eyes against a hot stinging sensation, and she’s there in front of you, cradling her trollpad in the crook of one arm and typing, swiftly and surely, with the other hand.  Her pretty face wears a look of consternation; her brow is furrowed and her gaze is sharp and clear.  Talking seems easier than typing, so you take a few steps closer until she notices you.  “Wwe’re supposed to be fated to be moirails, aren’t wwe?” you ask, hating how pathetic your voice sounds.  “You can’t just throww that all awway just ‘cause you’re sick a me…” Crawling on your stomach, grasping at one last straw as it rapidly and irretrievably slides down the load gaper.  Her expression changes instantly, and pain stabs you directly in the thoracic cavity, because her face is soft and beautiful and kind. But her words are cold, and they burn as they drop from her lips and slap you across the face.

“I just can’t look after you anymore.  You’re free to do as you wish now,” she says.  Her gaze shifts, going over your shoulder, and the small but genuine smile on her perfect black lips is burned indelibly into your think pan.  “We both are.”  

And that does it.  “I didn’t evver need anyone to look after me,” you snarl, closing the distance between you with two angry strides.  “I wwas totally fuckin’ fine!  My ambitions wwere noble!  And really none a your business,  _quite frankly_ , your  _majesty_!”  You can feel blood rushing to your face, tinting your cheeks and forehead and fins.  Maybe it will remind her who she’s talking to  _Is it hopeful to surrender to a murderous demon like a coward?!._ Did you just consider pulling blood rank on the Heiress?  You suppose you did.  “The only reason I put up with stickin’ my flipper into this fuckin’ shithole quadrant with you was-” No.  There’s no reason to continue.  You can see her eyes widen as she makes the connections for herself, and you turn away, lips pressed together hard enough to blanch them.

“Was what?” she asks behind you, voice even.  She wants to hear it from your lips, to have it in writing what sort of ridiculous notions you had bouncing around your stupid fucking head.  You decide to deny her the satisfaction.

“Nevvermind,” you mutter, pulling your scarf closer around your neck.  Its ends swing strangely, as though their weight has been changed – and you know this scarf intimately, with the familiarity of long, long wear.  She gave it to you, after all.  Something niggles at the back of your mind, but you ignore it, shoving your hands into your sodden pockets and stalking away.

“Tell me,” she barks, sharp and with the rich ring of power, expecting to be obeyed.  You have never heard her use this voice before, and it surprises you how quickly your rage returns.  Here, at the end of your moirallegiance and your friendship, she wants more to hold against you.  Overkill to a truly ridiculous degree.  You tear your eyes open as you spin around, fingers painfully tight around the hilt of your wand as you draw.

“ _No_ ,” you scream, eyes wide, flecks of spittle flying from your lips.  You take a step back, and your foot slips in the puddle of your lusus’ blood.  Except… it isn’t really his blood, is it?  The scenery changes for a split second: a dark grey floor made of some alien metal, walls of the same, an oppressive and claustrophobic little space.  Computers line the walls, glowing sullenly in idleness, a droning hum that gets under your skin and stays there.  In the center of the floor, a shockingly wide pool of liquid seeps down along the lines between the tiles, staining them tyrian purple. 

Just as quickly, you’re back in your respiteblock.  You lower your wand slowly as your vascular system gives another slow, tortured contraction, and another thick wave of offal-tainted purple erupts from your stomach and splashes over your shoes.  It’s in your mouth, too, and spitting it out takes longer than it should, a thin curtain of rich purple spilling down your chin.  Another slow beat, as your body attempts and fails to process the horrible damage it’s sustained.  Something slips out of place with this one and unfolds, landing wetly on your shoes.  You look back at her and her thoracic cage is a ragged hole, shreds of cloth and skin and muscle flapping loosely with each unsteady breath she takes.  There’s surprisingly little blood on the front of her shirt – a tyrian trail down between the remnants of her breasts – but her back has to be a mess, and her hair is clotted and tangled with blood and shards of bone.  “Oh god,” you whisper, letting the wand fall from suddenly nerveless fingers.  “You’re real.”

Feferi nods, opening her blank white eyes.  “Hello, Eridan,” she says quietly.

 

**== > Eridan: Handle it.**

You’re not so sure you can handle this, but you can’t very well not try.  You take a shaky breath, reaching out to pull your chair over to you – miss once, twice before you manage to snag the armrest.  You half-fall into the padded seat, letting it spin, and let your gaze drift over familiar furniture and belongings that once would have been comforting.  You hear soft footsteps behind you as Feferi steps carefully down off of your dresser and approaches you; by the time she stands at your side, her wound is gone.  She looks whole and healthy again – as perfect as she has every day since you first met her.  There’s a lump in your throat, and you swallow hard.  “I… wwhat do you wwant, Fef?” you finally manage to ask, intertwining your fingers as well as you can to keep your hands steady.  No dice; they keep shaking, and eventually you give up and bury your nails into the well-worn leather of the armrests.

“Can I sit down for a bit?” she asks, not even pretending she’s not dodging the question.  Your teeth aren’t suited for grinding, but you give it a fair shot anyway at her proximity.  She’s close enough that you can smell the sea on her skin and hair, even though it’s been… you don’t even remember how long since any of you have been within a hundred million miles of a sea of any kind.  She’s never worn perfume, as far as you know, but she’s never had to; the sweet seabreeze scent of her has always been enough for you.  You stand up and take a few steps to escape, gesturing at the vacated chair after a few seconds.  She sits down carefully, almost perching on the edge, as though it’s your real chair and not some fake produced out of sheer  _nothingness_  emptier than the void of space by her imaginary friends and she’s afraid to impose.  Cute.  “So… how have you been?”

 “Wwhat, really?  Really, Fef?”  The venom in your voice visibly stings her, and you feel a savage ugly thrill of satisfaction at it.  “That’s the best you can do?  After –”  _after I murdered you_ – “I don’t evven knoww howw many swweeps, the first thing you’re askin’ is howw I’vve been?  Like it’s been a wweek or twwo an’ you wwanna catch up?”  You shake your head, turning back to her and leaning back against the dresser.  She frowns and folds her arms across her breasts, not quite glaring up at you.

 “I’m just trying to be civil, Eridan,” she shoots back, her voice several degrees cooler than it had been.  “It can be hard for some people to adjust, that’s all.  If you don’t want me here, then just say so and I’ll go.”  She stands up and heads for the door, her footsteps slipper-soft on your floor.

“Wwait, Fef,” you say immediately, almost leaping back to your feet.  “I’m… I’m sorry.  Please… please don’t go.”  You’ve taken a few steps after her, and your outstretched hand hovers around the level of your waist for a few seconds as you try to figure out what to do with it.  Finally you let it fall, but you don’t relax, can’t relax, tension thrumming through your body.  She looks back at you for a long moment, then slowly turns and walks back to the chair.  Silence reigns.

“Wwhat do you wwant, Fef?” You ask again after a time, almost whispering.  Your gaze drops from her to the floor, and you hug yourself around the stomach as a phantom pain settles in across the silvery bite of Kanaya’s chainsaw.  “I don’t… you don’t just wwanna talk about howw I’m settlin’ in to the rest a my fuckin’ eternity.  I don’t believve that for a second.”  You shift on your makeshift seat, burying your face a bit further into your scarf.  She gave it to you years ago, and you’ve washed it so many times since then, but you still sometimes smell the sea breeze in its weave.  “An’ I think wwe ran out a things to say a long time ago.  So wwhat do you really wwant?”

“Well, first I want you to look at me,” she replies, rolling the chair a bit closer.  She reaches out to touch your elbow, the lightest brushing of grey fingertips against black cloth, and you flinch away.  She doesn’t pursue it, leaning back to give you a bit more space.  “I think… I just feel like we really need to talk.  About a lot of things.”  What does she want you to say to that?  You opt to say nothing, and after a few seconds she continues.  “Eridan, please.  Will you at least look at me?”  For a long moment, you don’t want to give her the satisfaction, but something makes you lift your eyes from the floorboards and meet her blank white eyes.  She smiles sadly, and you feel color come to your cheeks.

 “There, that’s better,” she says, settling into a more comfortable position in the chair.  She rolls a bit closer, but doesn’t try to touch you, which is fine with you.  No more “platonic palecuddles”, now or ever again.  “Now, let’s talk.  How have you been?”

“Howw do you think, Fef?” you ask, in a tone of voice you want to think of as anything other than bitter.  “I got sawwed in half an’ then I got dumped in here, an’ that’s the fuckin’ sum total.”  You sometimes forget what’s real and what isn’t as you dream, getting more and more caught up in the memories the bubble feeds you, an endless stream on repeat of the worst things you’ve ever done.  You’ve watched her die hundreds of times, and every time it feels like the first.  “Pretty borin’ otherwwise.  I don’t evven knoww howw long I’vve been here.”  What is there to keep track with?  The moons are fakes, and your husktop clock is fake too.  Even marks on the wall will disappear with the next memory.

 “About a year – half a sweep,” she answers, offering the information like a gift.  “Or at least, that’s what it’s been for me.  I don’t really understand how time works here… they’ve tried to explain, but it just makes my head hurt.”  She shrugs, looking apologetic, like this is something you actually care about.  Maybe she really does think that, but the funny thing about not caring is that you don’t really want to spare the effort to correct her, either, and so you say nothing.  She looks a little uneasy, but forges on ahead anyway.

“So… have you heard from any of the others?” she asks, trying and failing to smooth over the clunky change of subject.  “Sometimes the horrorterrors let me know when someone from our timeline’s nearby, and I go and say hi, but I guess you can’t really do that… maybe your bubble’s crossed with theirs?”  She looks like she really hopes that’s the case, folding her hands together in her lap and sitting forward a bit.

You shake your head.  “No one.”  This is true, and it only hurts a little to admit.  “No one at all.  You’re the first.”  It makes sense; no one ever bothered to seek you out when there wasn’t an empty void filled with monstrosities older than the concept of time between you, and you can’t think of a single reason why that would change now that there is.  “Wwhich is cool, I guess.  Not like I havve much a anythin’ to say to Eq or Nep or Tavv.”  To be honest, meeting anyone else at this point would just be a hassle.  Your memories are enough, and will have to be for the rest of time.

“Oh,” she says quietly, and the gentle expression on her face – the concern in her blank eyes – strikes you in the thoracic cavity like a punch.  You look away, trying to regain your balance, and she speaks again.  “I’m sorry.”

“Not  _your_  fault,” you mutter, tugging your scarf up again.  She opens her mouth, closes it again, then looks down at her slippered feet, kicking her toes together like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.  You both know whose fault it really is.

“Listen, Fef,” you say suddenly, cutting off the silence before it can become even more awkward.  “There’s somethin’ that I… kinda wwanna say.”  You’ve always been smart enough to read the atmosphere, and it’s clear as day to you that when she leaves this time she’s never coming back.  She sits up straighter, looking at you, and you press on.  “I just wwant you to knoww I… forgivve you.  For runnin’ off wwith the lowwblood, I mean.  Consortin' wwith him on LOBAF an' all.  An’ evven for attackin’ me in the lab.  Evverythin’s forgivven.  All a it.”  You cross your arms, looking back at her to gauge her reaction. 

She’s drawn herself up as far as she can, frowning.  “Glub,” she says, a bit sharply, before pausing, sighing, and letting herself slump back down.  “I don’t really want to talk about Sollux just yet, Eridan,” she says, looking down at her feet.  “I know it'll just make you angry, and I don't want you to be angry with me anymore.”

“Well, I think I’vve got some fuckin’ reason to be angry,” you snort.  “First off-”

“I just said, this has nothing to do with him,” she insists, cutting you off.  You talk over her.

“It’s got evverythin’ to do wwith that lowwblood piece a filth,” you snap.  “You knoww wwhen things started goin’ wwrong between us?  Wwhen you met that fuckin’ genetic flotsam, that’s wwhen.  I kneww he wwas bad news from the first time-”

“Eridan, stop it,” she warns you, moving to stand up, but oh, you’ve been waiting far too long to get this all off your nub, and you stand up too.  You have a few inches on her, but she stares unflinchingly up at you, her brow furrowed.  “Now isn't the time to talk about this.  If you’ll just listen to me-”

You raise your voice to drown her out, pacing a few steps away, your boots striking the floor like gunshots.  “-an’ wwhen wwe got into the Medium, oh, you wwere just fuckin’ ovverjoyed, wweren’t you?  I didn’t notice you droppin’ evverythin’ to come help me wwith the planet full a wrathful fuckin’ angels after my head, but the instant poor fuckin’ Sol doesn’t make it in he’s all you fuckin’ talk about-” 

“He  _died_ , Eridan,” she shouts, losing her cool.  You grin – well, at the very least you bare your teeth as the anger burns sick and hot in your thoracic cavity.  Finally.  “That had nothing to do with how I feel about him, it was because he was  _dead_!  And he died saving my life!  Do you have any idea what that felt like?  No, you don’t!  Because you never asked me how I felt about it, and when I tried to talk you never listened to me, because all you do and all you’ve ever done is glub about your own stupid problems that you made your own stupid self, and it just makes me so glubbing tired-” 

“Hoofbeastshit,” you snarl, taking a step toward her.  “You-”

The slap is delivered with the full force of her highblood strength, and it knocks you straight to your hands and knees.  Your glasses go skittering off across the floor, fetching up against the wall, and you put a hand to your stinging cheek.  The only sound is Feferi’s breathing, harsh and fast, and the silence stretches for an eternity.

“'M sorry,” you whisper.  Your rage has cooled in an instant, curdling into a dark and cold lump of regret and self-hatred that sits heavily in your stomach.  You pull yourself up with the dresser, hand still pressed to your cheek, and turn away, staring at the floor.

There’s no answer, and you hear her footsteps heading for the door.  So this is how it ends?  As partings go, it’s barely better than the last one, and you shut your eyes tightly and will her to just hurry up and go.  The perfect fucking end to the pathetic, ugly story of Eridan Ampora.  And if her shocked, angry face is the last you ever see of her… well, at least it’s a change from the vaguely surprised expression of a corpse.

“I’m sorry too,” her voice interrupts, and you open your eyes to see her standing there, holding your glasses.  She offers them to you wordlessly, and you take them, settling them back on your nose without looking at her.  You sit back down on the dresser, and after a few seconds she sits down too, her thigh touching yours.  You don’t look at her, but you don’t move either, and after a few moments she speaks again.  “…I think we both said a lot of things we... no, I guess we did both really mean them.  Maybe we should talk this over after all...”

“I don’t see wwhat’s left to talk about,” you mumble, lacing your fingers in your lap.  “Look, Fef, it wwas… good seein’ you an’ all, but you don’t havve to force yourself to stay wwith me.  I wwon’t mind if you wwanna leavve after all that.”  It is, of course, the only thing left you would mind.  But you’ll have an eternity to get over it.

“It’s okay,” she says, shaking her head.  “I don’t.”  She doesn’t look at you, but fiddles with the heavy gold bracelet on her wrist.  “…So.  You… know how I feel about Sollux, right?”  She says it hesitantly, like she knows what an obvious question it is but doesn’t have any idea where else to begin.

You feel your nails bite into your knee through the fabric of your pants, your blood starting to roil again at the mention of his name, but you take a breath and manage to keep it under control.  “Yeah.  I got an inklin’ or twwo, yeah.”

“I don’t know what it is about him,” she says quietly.  “He’s such a grump, but somehow it feels like… he understands me, even when he doesn’t sound like he’s listening.  Or maybe… like he’s pretending not to care, but I know he really does.  He cares a lot, about me and about everyone else on the team too.  And even though he’s done so much to help everyone, he’s so hard on himself all the time, like he doesn’t think he’s good enough for us.”  You can hear the blush in her voice when she continues.  “Like he doesn’t think he’s good enough for me.”

“I don’t think he is,” you mutter.  She looks at you, tense, ready for another outburst, but you just shake your head, tired of the lying, tired of the moobeastshit, tired of all of it.  “I don’t think anyone is, Fef,” you continue.  “You’re just… you’re pretty an’ kind an’ knowwin’ you wwas the best fuckin’ thing that evver happened to me, an’ I wwas too stupid to just shut my glub hole an’ tell you before evverythin’ wwent to hell, an’ wwhen I did… wwell.”  You take a deep breath.  “I kneww I wwasn’t good enough for you either.  I kneww it, but it still hurt, seein’ you smile at him.  Howw wwas I supposed to wwatch that?” you ask quietly.  “Did you evver evven think a how that made me feel?”  She’s looking steadily at you, not blinking, and her expression is almost impossible to read.  You take a deep breath and plunge ahead; you’ve already ruined things, so you might as well say everything you have to say.  “I don’t… I knoww I wwas kinda a shitty moirail.  I didn’t listen to you, an’ it wwas alwways you supportin’ me all the time, an’ all my stupid fishy face evver did wwas wwhine an’ glub.”  You attempt a small laugh, but your throat is having none of it, and instead it sounds like a choked-back sob.  Which may or may not be more appropriate.  “An’ I wwoulda made an evven shittier matesprit.  So maybe it’s better that you’re wwith Sol noww.  At least…” Oh god, here come the tears.  “At least he makes you happy…” Yup.  The world has turned purple and blurry, and you squeeze your eyes shut painfully tightly.  “God, I’m so sorry, Fef…”

“Oh, Eridan,” she says softly, almost whispering.  Her fingers brush the back of your hand, and you find your hand sandwiched between her own.  “Do you remember that night I came ashore?” she asks, stroking the back of your hand with her thumb.  It’s distracting and relaxing and you don’t want to be relaxed and you immediately try to pull away, but her grip is suddenly like steel so you stay where you are.  As for the question… of course you remember.  There’s only one night she could be referring to, and your cheeks flush yet again as she keeps talking.  “We were only three sweeps old, and I was visiting you for the first time.  I’d never been on land before and I didn’t have any shoes…”

“You cut your foot pretty bad on a rock an’ couldn’t stand back up,” you say thickly, the image clear before your eyes.  A little girl sitting in the surf, wailing as she clutches at her foot, tyrian purple swirling in the foam.  “I wwas gonna say I told you so, but…”

“But you didn’t,” Feferi replies.  Her eyes are closed, and it’s obvious that she’s seeing the same thing you are.  “You picked me up on your back and carried me all the way back to your hive, and I was screaming about how I was going to die and wiggling around the whole way.  And then when we arrived, you bandaged me up, and you looked so serious the entire time, like you wanted to lecture me…” She smiles and gives a little giggle.  “Actually, didn’t you?  I think you might have.”  She stands up, still holding your hand.  “That’s one of my most precious memories, you know.  You were so careful and gentle with me, and I felt safe with you.  I couldn’t think of you for days afterward without blushing.”  She’s blushing a little bit now, you can’t help but notice, but your entire body feels hazy and numb as you stare up at her. 

 “Life hasn’t been kind to you, has it, Eridan?” she asks quietly.  “I guess it hasn’t really been to any of us, but I think you were always the most fragile of us all… and it broke you down and it made you hard and hateful and selfish and bitter, and I helped.”  She looks down, staring at your hand in hers.  “And then I couldn’t put you back together.  So I stopped trying.  Maybe you were a bad moirail, I guess… but so was I, and I’m so sorry for that.”  She gives a small laugh.  “I guess maybe we really never were meant to be moirails in the first place?”  You close your eyes against the sting, looking down, and she pulls on your hand.  “Eridan!  Maybe we weren’t meant to be moirails, but you were never a bad friend to me.  I think you might even have been my best frond, actually.”

The fish pun shocks you out of your reverie, and you stand up, successfully pulling away this time.  Feferi looks up at you, a bit surprised, and you turn away, unable to meet her gaze.  “Fef, I wwas gonna sell evveryone to Jack.  I bleww up Kan’s matriorb.  I… I fuckin’ murdered you,” you whisper, feeling more tears come.  “Howw can I evver evven think a askin’ for forgivveness for that?  Howw can you say I wwasn’t a bad friend?”

“I don’t know,” she replies truthfully, taking a step closer.  “But I’m going to.  And you don’t need to worry about asking for my forgiveness.”  She smiles, and watery purple slips down her cheeks.  “You already have it.”

“Oh god, Fef…” It’s too much.  Your thoracic cavity feels like it’s about to burst, and you fall to your knees, tears blurring your vision too badly to even see her anymore.  You cling to her legs, face buried in the soft fabric of her skirt, and bawl.  It’s embarrassing and messy and you’re probably staining her clothes and crushing your glasses, but you don’t care.  “Oh god, Fef, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”  Listen to you, you’re barely even saying words anymore.

“Shh, Eridan, it’s all right,” she says, and her hands are on your shoulders and then your back as she embraces you, kneeling down herself to support your stupid blubbery wiggler self.  “It’s all right.  Everyone can be together again now, and we don’t have to hurt or be hurt by anyone anymore.  I’m sorry too.  Shh, don’t cry.  Please don’t cry.”  But she’s crying too, you can tell; there are tears in her voice and also in your shirt from her face in your shoulder.  It seems only fair after you probably ruined her skirt.  It just feels right to throw your arms around her, and when she lets out a sob, you know she feels the same way.  It almost doesn’t come as a surprise when she pulls back just enough to kiss you.

The kiss is awkward and almost painful, the force of her lips jabbing your own back onto your teeth and nearly drawing blood, but your think pan is too occupied with softness and coolness and the taste of the sea to care.  You reciprocate after a shocked moment; if this has all just been just another dream, you won’t let it go to waste.  But she’s solid and real in your arms, and more tears pour out from under your eyelids as you finally understand, and for once the universe is still and quiet and lets you have this.

“Fef,” you begin when the two of you finally break for air.  A small, unhelpful part of your think pan comments that breathing is only a thing because you’re used to it being a thing and that you could conceivably have kept having makeouts for another hour or so, but that’s not useful so you tell it to shut up.  Feferi looks at you expectantly, her lips a bit swollen, and her face is flushed purple oh god why is she so adorable.  “Fef, I… I-”

“Well, that was the most disgusting thing I’ve seen all sweep,” a new, immediately annoying voice comments from the direction of your couch.  Surely it can’t be… but it is.  Sollux Captor, the smarmy lowblood bastard, is reclining on your couch – yes, really!  Like he owns it – and is watching you and Feferi with droll amusement in his mismatched, black-and-white eyes.  “Oh, don’t stop for my sake, Ampora,” he continues, holding his hands up in mock surrender.  “I was only feeling a bit queasy.  You’ve got another five minutes at least before shit starts getting real all over your stuff.”  You drop your hands from Feferi immediately, face blazing purple, but she smiles at you.  She heard you, and understood you, and right now that’s all you care about in the entire world. 

Feferi, in the meantime, has stood up and crossed her arms over her breasts, sighing at Sollux.  “Don’t be such a grouch, Sollux,” she reprimands him, wiping discreetly at her eyes.  “We talked about this, remember?”

“Yeah, but it’s another thing seeing it actually happen,” Sollux replied darkly, sitting up.  “I think you’re making a mistake, princess.  This guy’s not worth it.”

It’s difficult to say exactly what feelings the sight of Captor evinces in you at the moment.  He’s frowning at you, which is his default state of being as far as you can tell, but for some reason the sight of his face doesn’t make you want to kill him anymore.  Neither does his grating voice or the way he’s still spreading out over your furniture.  Instead, you feel a bit of color rising to your cheeks, and you pull yourself to your feet, making sure to sweep your cape dramatically.

“Yeah, wwell, I don’t remember askin’ your opinion, filthblood,” you reply, hopefully in a way that can’t be described as ‘huffy’ but that you get the sinking feeling can.  “In case you didn't notice, there's been a bit of a tidal shift here.  I think it’s pretty glubbin’ obvvious howw things are gonna wwork around here from noww on.  Right, Fef?”  You cross your arms with a harrumph and turn to her, expecting to see her chilly gaze turned on the lowblood interloper for once.  But she’s smiling, and her eyes are dancing with mischievous light.  Something’s not right here.

Sollux obviously picks up on your confusion, and he lets out a frustrated sigh.  “Look at this fucking moron.  He doesn’t have a single clue in his think pan about what’s going on here, and he’s lecturing me on “howw things are gonna wwork”.”  He rolls his eyes, the gesture easily understandable even on someone who lacks pupils, and you feel your face flush a bit more.  The utter nerve… not to mention that now, lacking his customary lisp, his impression of you is much more accurate and much crueler.

“You’re the one wwithout a fuckin’ clue,” you snap back, feeling a bit giddy.  “Need me to spell it out for you, Sol?”  He raises an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed, and you toss your cape aside with a mighty sneer.  You are so ready to get this Grief on, but a thought occurs to you, and you step down from readiness for a moment, looking over at Feferi.  “Fef?  Aren’t you gonna stop us?” you ask, frowning.

She thinks for a moment, or at least pretends to, then shakes her head, smiling deviously.  “Nope,” she trills, and you can almost sea (ha) the trident at the end of the word.  “Go ahead.  You go show him,” she says, patting you on the shoulder, and you can almost feel your thoracic cage puff up.  Fuck yeah you’re gonna go show him.

“If you’re done hiding behind the princess?” Sollux asks, standing.  He’s a bit taller than you remembered him being; still a short motherglubber, but it’s been ages since you saw him last.  It almost surprises you.  “Come on, then, ED.  Let’s get this over with already.”

“Couldn’t agree more, Sol,” you snarl, striding over to him.  Wandkind is too good for him, and you ditched Ahab’s Crosshairs after giving it to the annoying limeblood human, so you’ll have to make do with good old-fashioned pimpringfistkind.  It’s worked for you in the past.  You see Sollux’s eyes widen as you cock your fist back, ready to take a swing, and then-

And then you’re falling forward as he grabs your fist and goes over backward, landing hard on top of him on the couch.  Suddenly his hands are on your face and balled in your shirt and in your hair, and his tongue is in your mouth, and yours is in his.  To your immense relief, he doesn’t taste like the mustard one would expect; he just tastes like lips, not that you’ve really had a lot of experience with that particular taste.  His nails scrape over your skin, and you growl, biting at his lip.  The skin breaks under your teeth, a tiny cut, and you can taste his blood.  For sludge, it’s… almost tolerable, and you suck at his lip, wanting more.  “Hey, watch it,” he manages, giving you a sharp pinch in the side.  You slap his hand away and pin it above his head, getting ready to – but Fef’s arms are around your thoracic cage and she’s pulling you away, her bubbling laugh silvery next to your ear. 

“Wwhat just happened,” you demand of the two of them as Sollux sits up, a finger to his lip, and Feferi sits you down on the couch, placing herself between you.  “Fef, did you – you kneww that wwas gonna happen, didn’t you?”

She nods, her eyes sparkling.  “I might have had a betta an idea,” she singsongs, and you’re too annoyed and stunned and ecstatic and tingly to even point out how that’s the worst stretch you’ve ever heard from her.  “I  _said_  we talked about it!”

“It was more of a lecture, really,” Sollux grumbles from her other side.  “’Cause I don’t remember getting to say much.”  It’s really disorienting, not hearing him lisp; of course, you couldn’t help but notice that most of his protuberant, ugly lowblood mutant fangs had been knocked out at some time or another, presumably by someone with an actual sense of aesthetics, so that solves that question.  He prods Feferi in the side and she jumps, giggling, and falls on him, long fingers dancing up and down his thoracic cage.  “Gah, shit, FF!  Fucking stop it!” he shouts, pulling his arms and legs in to protect himself.  You have to admit it’s kind of cute, and that just makes you hate him more.  The realization makes you blush, but it also brings up a pertinent question.

“Wwait just a minute,” you say, leaning up over Feferi.  It brings you kind of close to her rump, and you feel your blush intensify as she and Sollux put their ticklefight on hold and look over at you.  “So… wwait, howw’s this gonna wwork in terms a, like, quadrants?  I can livve wwith caliginous or wwhatevver wwith Sol –” “Gee, thanks, asshole,” he puts in – “but wwhat about you, Fef?” you continue, increasing your volume a bit to talk over Sollux.  “I mean, I can see you’re… lookin’ kinda flushed ovver there…”  Yeah, it hurts a little to say, and your thoracic cavity hurts a bit in preparation for her excuse of ‘platonic pale kiss’ or something like that.

“I don’t see why I can’t have two matesprits,” Feferi replies reasonably, shrugging.  “As long as you two are okay with it.”  Rather, you would like to call her tone of voice reasonable – that’s definitely what she thinks it is – but you’re too busy picking your blindsided think pan up off the floor where it slid out your listen tube.  Where to start with the problems with that?  You try to find a way.

“Two matesprits?  Fef, that’s completely impossible,” you say.  “You’re not tryin’ to auspitice here, are you?  You yelled at me wwhen I tried that earlier…” You rub a hand through your hair, not really proud to remember the incident. 

“Yeah, I was surprised too,” Sollux says from underneath her.  Feferi ‘humph’s and sits back down on the couch, letting Sollux up, and he leans back on the armrest as he speaks.  “I told her it was weird as shit, but she apparently doesn’t care.”

“We’re all dead anyway,” Feferi points out, still looking a little sulky.  “Why should we care what the official definitions of the quadrants say anymore?  Why can't we all just... be in love?  You know,” she adds, smiling again, “I read that the Signless and his Disciple had a romance that transcended the quadrants.  So it’s obviously possible, right?”

“Wwell, yeah, but he wwas a mutant and probably a pervv,” you reply, in what seems like a reasonable train of logic to you.  Both of them glare at you for it, though, and you subside with a frown.

“Don’t make me go over there and shut your mouth, ED,” Sollux says lazily, and the frown deepens.

“If anythin’, I’d be shuttin’  _your_  mouth, Sol,” you shoot back, flushing.  He’s looking a bit yellow himself, but Feferi quickly clears her throat.  It’s a quiet sound, barely noticeable, but you and Sollux both freeze the fuck in place.  He’s as well trained as you are. 

“You two,” Feferi says, looking between the both of you.  “I’m reely happy to see you getting along so well!  But we have to work things out between the three of us first.”  She takes your hand; Sollux looks on, looking amused.  “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings this time,” she says quietly.  You can’t hold back a sniffle, and Sollux groans and rolls his eyes. 

“I’m cool with it if you are, ED,” he says, shrugging.  “It’s not really cheating if we’re all involved anyway, right?  I mean, it won’t ever be a contest as to who’s better with a pail, but…” Well, there goes any subtlety about  _that_ question straight out the window.  You’re sure your face is bright purple, and you sputter a bit, desperately trying to avoid eye contact with either of them.  But Feferi’s hand is on your cheek – the one she slapped – and she guides your gaze back to hers and kisses you, gently, on the mouth.

“…okay,” you manage to reply through the tingling of your lips.  Feferi smiles – one of the brightest you’ve ever seen from her, and it makes you melt – and even Sollux looks relieved, the fucker.  The combination of her sweet charm and his casual, unashamed filthy-mindedness is having a weird effect on you; is it hot in here, or is that just you?  “It’s just like a lowwblood to go right to the bucket, isn’t it, though?” you ask, going for a haughty look.  (Being Feferi for a moment, you note that this appears merely snooty, not really haughty.  You decide not to mention this.) 

“Actually,” Feferi says, reaching behind the couch.  You raise a hand to call hoofbeastshit – this is your couch in your hive and there is no way – but she’s withdrawing, oh god, a bucket, and your central vascular bladder is attempting to claw its way up into your chitinous windpipe oh god.  “It was kind of my idea,” she admits, looking adorably apologetic.  If she’s proposing what you think she is, you wonder what in the Incipisphere she thinks she has to be apologetic about.  Oh god.

“Hell yeah it was,” Sollux chimes in.  You don’t miss the way his hand moves comfortably to Fef’s waist, and you’re sure neither does she.  “You wouldn’t believe how glubbing horny this girl gets.”

“Sol,” she says reprovingly, smiling at him.  Your bulge notes that she doesn’t deny it, though, and you shift uncomfortably.  Sollux smirks at you over her head.  “Only if you want to, Eridan,” she continues, turning to you.  The look on her face is earnest and concerned, and it somehow only raises the temperature in the room.  “I just think it might be nice, and maybe make things more… official.  I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I do,” Sollux comments, and you have to cross your legs to keep your bulge from extruding right then and there.  Stupid sexy lowblood.  “Come on, FF, he obviously wants it.  Let’s just get to business and see how things work out.”  You manage a nod, hoping it doesn’t look too pathetically desperate.

“Oh, alright,” Feferi replies.  She sits back, settling into the couch, and takes your hand in her right and Sollux’s in her left.  The next thing you know, your hand is resting on her breast.  The soft, yielding flesh under her swimsuit is an entirely new texture, and she smiles indulgently at you as you slowly, wonderingly move your hand.  Her nipple is already hard – probably no thanks to Sollux, whose hand is already underneath the fabric, the pervert – and she draws in a little breath as you cautiously pinch it.  “Come closer,” she says, grabbing both of you by the shoulder and pulling you in to snuggle with her.  Your face is right next to hers and only a few inches from Sollux’s and it is a little overwhelming to say the least, but you are determined not to be shown up by your kismesis (and doesn’t that feel good to say) in front of your matesprit (almost as good as that feels, actually!).  Fef shifts on the couch with a quiet sound as you palm her breast with a bit more force, and you shoot an excited glance at Sol.  He raises an eyebrow.  “What do you expect, a medal?” he asks.

“Maybe a kiss?” you reply, surprising yourself with your own bravado, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t bite so fucking hard this time,” he says, and leans in.

 

**== > Be Feferi Peixes.**

You are FEFERI PEIXES for a bit, and you are loving this.  The only problem, you reflect, is that your boys seem more interested in each other at the moment than they are in you, which wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t so glubbing horny (what can you say?  Sollux may have been out of line with his earlier comment, but he wasn’t  _wrong,_ and your matesprits’ kismesitude is pretty ridiculously hot if you do say so YOURS—-ELF!).  An inch or so of your bulge is already extruded and pressing distractingly against your underwear, and you try to get it to calm down for the moment.  Sollux’s tongue working in and out of Eridan’s mouth doesn’t help with that at  _all_ , though, and eventually you give up.  It’s time for a different approach.

 

**== > Sollux: Evaluate different approach.**

In your opinion, whatever is causing Feferi to take off her shirt is a good thing and should never stop being a thing that is happening.

 

**== >Sollux: Be Eridan again.**

You can’t be Eridan no matter how far down his throat you stick your tongue, but the viewpoint obligingly shifts anyway.

You take a break from kissing Sollux – only light biting, as you promised, to your slight disappointment – and notice that Feferi is undoing the ties on her top.  The material is thin anyway, and ever since halfway into your eighth sweep it’s clung  _interestingly_ to her body whenever she leaves the water, but there’s something entirely different about this.  She pulls the shirt away from her body, tossing it carelessly onto the floor, and your bulge almost goes crazy at the sight.  She’s built from smooth lines and curves, slender and pale and muscled like a dancer; her breasts are small but perky, their tips capped with dark purple-grey, and she flashes you a brilliant smile when she catches you staring.  “You’re cute,” she says, giggling, a slight purple flush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks. 

“You’re beautiful,” you reply quietly, and her flush deepens.  On the other side of her, Sollux coughs.

“Welp,” he says, and pulls his own shirt off in one smooth motion.  He’s not exactly what you’d call muscled – three weeks of Sgrub aside, he’s spent most of his life inside on the computer – and he’s skinny enough that you wonder (contemptuously, of course) when the last time he ate was.  Before… dying, you mean.  Anyway, the fact remains that he’s a stick-shaped motherglubber.  His bone structure is fine, his collarbone and thoracic cage defined but not disgustingly so, and the sharp edges of his face, so incongruous with his baggy, ill-fitting T-shirt, lead right into his long neck and shoulders.  You hate to admit it, but if he took proper care of himself, he might be prettier than you.  But you know that will never happen, so it doesn’t worry you much.  You are, however, struck with a sudden urge to mark that pretty skin of his with your teeth, nails, whatever, just to make him bleed his ugly yellow blood.

“Your turn,” Feferi says, turning back to you.  Sollux brushes a curl of her voluminous hair back over her shoulder, his hand lingering on her skin, and grins.  “Here…”  She leans forward, bracing herself with an elbow against the back of the couch, and unwinds your scarf from around your neck.  On impulse, you reach up and grab one of her breasts as she leans into you; she laughs and gives you a peck on the cheek.  “Arms up,” she commands, sitting back on her heels and demonstrating, and Sollux comes over and pulls your shirt off in one motion, catching your glasses and nearly your horns as well.  You make a rude gesture at him; he raises his eyebrows and licks his lips.  God, you hate that guy. 

 

**== > Feferi: Admire Eridan, then remind him who he belongs to.**

Watching Sollux take his shirt off is a delight, and your bulge extrudes another inch or so as your body remembers the feel of him, the heat of his bare chest against your bare back.  But Eridan is  _new_ , and you feel a little shiver as Sollux carelessly pulls the shirt off of your childhood friend.  Eridan is the tallest of the three of you, and everything about his body is long to fit his height – his neck, his arms, his fingers.  It gives him a thin look despite the smooth muscle shifting just underneath the surface of his skin – compact, smooth deltoids and biceps, the hint of abs showing above his belt.  The gills on his sides are rich royal purple, the same color as the shock in his hair, and you are struck with the sudden urge to trace them, just to see how he’ll react (yours aren’t very ticklish, but maybe his are?).  You manage to keep the impulse under wrasse, though.

He’s currently fighting with Sollux over his glasses, and they’re getting physical very quickly with the heat of skin on skin; as much as you want to enjoy the show, you’re starting to feel a bit left out again.  The boys have landed on the floor now, wrestling on the carpet, and you deftly insert yourself between them, straddling Eridan’s hips as he leans back against the couch; Sollux obligingly takes up a position behind you, embracing you, and you smile.  But this is about Eridan, and you lean forward, giving him a quick kiss.  “How are you feeling?” you ask.  “Everyfin alright?”

 

**== > Eridan: Kiss the girl, you runt.**

You thought being so close to Feferi earlier was overwhelming, but you had no real idea, did you?  A whole new world of whelming opens up as she straddles you, her curvy hips opening to either side of your legs.  You’re fairly certain that your bone bulge is almost directly below her nook, and your bulge extrudes a few inches to investigate and make sure.  Fortunately it ends up going down your pant leg instead of between the two shifting plates of bone; that would be a great way to end the festivities for the evening.  You miss what Feferi asks you, but that’s alright.  Her face is inches from yours, her sweet breath tickling your nose, and she looks delighted to be there.  In lieu of an answer, you wrap your arms around her, pulling her bare chest to yours as you stifle her surprised squeak with a kiss.  Enough of this pecking nonsense, though; you tangle a hand in her hair and open your mouth wide, capturing her tongue as she slips it between your lips.  She hums happily, reciprocating, as Sollux busies himself planting kisses on her bare shoulder.  “That’s a yes,” she says, giggling, when you finally let her away for air.

“Howw is it that you two havve so much… experience?” you have to ask, panting for breath slightly.  Sollux plays idly with Feferi’s breasts as you run your fingers up and down her sides, avoiding the lines of her gills (yours are ticklish, and as adorable as that might be, you don’t want to upset her).  “I feel kinda lost here.”  Sollux and Feferi exchange glances, and surprisingly, it’s Sollux who blushes.

“We had a lot of time to kill,” he says, shrugging.  Now Feferi blushes too, and she leans forward, eager to change the subject.

“You don’t really have to worry about it,” she says teasingly, and lifts herself up off of you just long enough to reach down between her legs and unbutton your pants.  Your bulge, almost fully extruded, writhes beneath the fiberplant material of your underwear, your body instinctively seeking the heat and touch of Feferi’s palm.  Feferi lets out a little coo of happiness, which is probably the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever heard, and obliges, placing her hand directly on the stiffening bulge.  “Oh my cod, it’s so cute,” she cries, grinning.  “Look how eager he is, Sol!”  No,  _that_ was the most embarrassing.

“Hey,” you protest, your face burning.  “Wwho’s glubbin’ fault do you think that is, huh?”  You try to draw your legs in a bit, but that’s stupid; Fef is sitting pretty on your hips, and she doesn’t seem likely to move anytime soon.  She rolls your bulge gently around with the heel of her hand, which is absolute torture; you can’t keep a quiet gasp from escaping your lips, and – of course – it doesn’t escape Sollux’s notice.

“Aw, sounds like he might be getting a bit overexcited,” the mustardblood comments, shifting a bit on your legs.  You can feel something hot curling powerfully against your thigh and are eager to call him on his hypocrisy, but Fef’s hand feels too good to do anything but whimper a little.  Sol’s bulge is definitely affecting you, though; you can feel your nook start to creep open, getting ready to accept its girth, and you grit your teeth.  “Wanna give him something to play with, FF?” 

She nods eagerly, and Sollux runs his hands down her sides – pushing yours out of the way, naturally – until they rest on her hips.  You watch his hands with as much wariness as you can muster given Fef’s tender ministrations, eyes narrowing in suspicion as he starts to root around in her skirts.  Finally he lifts the colorful drapes of cloth away, sliding them behind Feferi’s legs, and you get your first good look at her crotch, framed perfectly by the pearly skin of her thighs.  Her underwear is black, the fabric stretched by the prominence of her bone bulge, and the length of her bulge is clearly visible curling above and around the protective cup.  You swallow hard; she’s excited, the tip of her bulge snaking around restlessly, and you feel your own bulge engorge to full readiness at the sight.  This, of course, earns you another coo from Feferi, and she hooks her thumbs into her waistband.  “Ready?” she asks, sliding her underwear down slowly.

“Wwait, Fef,” you say quickly, visibly surprising her.  She cocks her head at you, and you smile as reassuringly as you can manage with your central vascular bladder beating so fast.  “I just wwanna…” you begin, not bothering to finish the sentence as you reach out a hand.  The skin of Feferi’s stomach is smooth and cool, and she draws in a breath as your fingers slip downward, edging beneath the elastic around her hips.  The tip of her bulge finds you immediately and curls around your fingers, intertwining into a complex weave in seconds.  Her skin is soft and dry over an inner core of flexible tumescence and almost surprising heat, and you run your thumb over the closest curl as you slowly draw her out.  And then the strange sensation you’ve been getting makes sense.

For a moment, you’re almost stunned.  Yes, you know you’re staring, and yes, it’s impolite, but her bulge is nothing short of gorgeous.  It’s the same sublime tyrian shade as her blood, naturally, but it doesn’t stop there.  Her bulge uncurls from around your fingers for a moment, and as it straightens out, the  _other_  tips unfurl, eight in total, growing from the central spine like a leaf, or a rare and beautiful piece of seaweed.  She laughs out loud, and even Sollux smirks at you as you watch her curl into and around herself.  You are presently aware that your jaw is hanging open a little.

“Wwoww, I… didn’t expect anyfin like that,” you say, reaching out your hand again.  This time, free of the constraint of her underwear, Feferi fully captures your hand, wrapping each finger individually with one or more feelers.  You’re well and truly caught, it seems, and her various tips roam across your skin, stroking and petting your hand with little intimate motions.

When you look back up to her face, though, she seems worried.  “You don’t… mind, do you?” she asks quietly, flushing.  “I know it’s unusual… even Sollux gave me carp about it the first time, like he’s one to talk.”  She casts him a look, and he shrugs.  “But I guess this is just how mine is…”  She looks a bit embarrassed, and you give her your best reassuring smile for the second time in as many minutes.

“You’re beautiful, Fef,” you say, rubbing her central spine with your thumb.  “I thought I already told you that.”  It’s so, so sappy, but you feel your central vascular bladder melt when she finally looks back up at you, hesitant and shy like you’ve almost never seen her before.

She smiles, reaching out and touching fingers with you.  “Thanks.”  After a few more seconds, Fef bites her lower lip, and you smirk, giving your fingers a bit of a wavy wiggle.  She shudders, letting out a quiet moan, and lifts herself off of you long enough to pull her underwear down as far as she can, until the elastic frames her bone bulge like a picture. 

Sollux has joined you in running his hands over her, focusing on her base and the folds of skin around her sheath, and you can feel her shuddering gently at the sensation.  “H-hey, easy, Sollux,” she says, back to business.  “I don’t wanna cum until we’ve had a chance to try this.”  She looks pointedly at your own bulge, still trapped in your underwear, and hooks her fingers into your waistband.  You spring forth as she pulls, uncoiling up into the air – a lovely rich shade of purple, if you say so yourself – and almost immediately, your bulge wraps itself around Feferi’s.  The sensation is intense, and you throw your head back with a grunt.  Feferi practically convulses, letting out a loud cry as you wrap tighter around her, and Sollux wraps his arms around her waist, holding her tightly.  “Oh, yes,” she moans, rubbing her hips down against you.  “Yes, yes…”  Your bare bone bulge is grinding directly into her already open nook; you can feel her shame globes trembling with each brush of contact, and after a particularly rough thrust of her hips, Feferi’s breath hitches and she lets out a quiet sigh.  A small trickle of tyrian purple traces a trail down your bone bulge – frothy, thick liquid, the indescribably precious genetic material of the Heiress.  You can feel a small amount more soaking into your underwear, far less than you would have expected.

“Fef, don’t tell me you just…” you ask, raising an eyebrow.  You can’t quite bring yourself to say the word, even with your bulge still wrapped up in and writhing together with hers, and Sollux snorts, leaning a bit to grab the weave of your bulges and work the both of them over with his hands.

“Nah,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the amount of attention you are able to pay to him talking right now, which is close to zero.  “That happens a lot when she gets too excited, which is fucking always because she’s way too fucking sensitive.  I blame her weird-ass bulge.”  This last is directed to Feferi herself, spoken almost directly into the nape of her neck along with a kiss, and she sticks her tongue out at him.  “Don’t worry, ED – we’re just getting started.”  He gives your bulge wrap a squeeze, and Fef moans again.  You grit your teeth to deny him the pleasure of hearing your voice, but it’s a near thing.

“Here, Sollux, touch me,” Feferi murmurs, lifting her hips a little.  The movement shifts her nook away from your bone bulge, and Sollux slides his hand between the two of you.  You can feel his hand pressing on your cup as he slips a finger into her wet nook, and Feferi’s tendrils tighten around you as he strokes one of her globes.  “Yes, right there…”  Sollux’s ministrations continue to pulse down her length at regular intervals, and you ball your fists hard.  Feferi takes your hand, interlacing her fingers with yours, and holds Sollux’s with the other as her breathing grows heavier. 

It’s not like she’s the only one getting anything out of this, either.  Her bulge is chill against your own, and she’s squeezing hard, harder than you’ve ever tried on your own, but it feels good.   _Really_  good.  Unbelievably good.  You want to throw your head back and close your eyes, but you don’t.  You keep your eyes locked on hers – and it’s so easy to fill in her blank white gaze with purple, the stunning eyes of a monarch in her prime.  She’d be of age for it, after all.  But it’s easier to fill her eyes in with yellow – the way she had looked when you saw her last, and the way you remember her even now.  She sparkles in your memories – sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, sometimes quiet and sometimes sad, but always  _bright_  and  _vivid_ and  _alive_ , so alive you felt thin and cold and small in comparison – and you were the one to strike her down, to snuff the star with your petty stupid jealousy and misguided hate, and you feel the tears coming again, stinging your eyes mercilessly.  “Fef,” you croak, finally squeezing your eyes shut, unable to face her anymore.  “I’m –”

Her arms are around you before you can even finish the sentence.  You feel her soft lips dart to your eyes, and then your foreheads are touching; her eyes are the first thing you see when you open yours.  “Shh, Eridan,” she says, pressing a shaky hand to your lips.  “I missed you so much, you know.  I’ve spent so long looking for you out here.  Even with their help, I just couldn’t…”  Her breath is coming faster now, and Sollux breathes an inaudible curse.  More genetic material soaks into your underwear, but your attention is focused on her.  Only on her.  “I said it earlier, that you broke… I really felt like I was talking to a whole different person sometimes.  Like you’d been taken over by your anger.  And I missed you.”  She holds you tighter, letting out a sharp gasp as she squeezes you with more force than before.  “I missed the boy who carried me home that night, and wrapped my foot, and let me sleep with the window open because I was scared without the sound of the waves.  I missed him.”  She buries her face in your neck with a cry, sucks in three sharp breaths.  “Well, now I’ve found you again, Eridan,” she whispers harshly, her lips brushing your face.  “It’s okay.  Don’t worry.  Don’t cry.  You don’t have to be alone anymore.”  And her bulge ripples around yours, and she mashes her lips to yours and screams into your mouth as a flood builds up in your hips and rushes up your length.  Rich royal purple explodes up between your bodies as Sollux swears again, pulling his hand free and releasing a gush of Feferi’s precious essence that soaks your lower body and spills out into a puddle around you.  She collapses shuddering into you, feathering kisses on your lips and face, and you hold her tightly, tasting her tears and yours on your lips.

“I lovve you, Fef,” you gasp.  No matter how inadequate the words are, no matter how inadequate you yourself may feel… her eyes meet yours, and even if you can’t believe in yourself, you feel a bit stronger knowing that she can, and does, and will forever.  “Cod, I’m so fuckin’ flushed for you, Fef…”

“I love you too, Eridan,” she says, snuggling into you heedless of the mess you just made.  “My grumpy gills.”  You can’t help but snort at the nickname, and Sollux does too.  Fef’s head is buried in your neck, so she can’t see the look he gives you… and you almost wish you hadn’t, either.  His eyes are tender as he watches her snuggle into you, and when he looks up at you there’s something approaching approval, as well as thanks, in his good eye.  It’s almost enough to make you not want to hate him for a bit! 

“Jegus, you guys made a mess,” he says after a long moment, not even mentioning the confessions.  It’s like he’s trying to tear this kismesitude apart, you swear... but you don't really mind it all that much.  Feferi laughs against your thoracic cage, pulling away with her fingers laced in yours; her body is practically painted in your royal purple, a sight which no doubt sends more of the color to your face.  “Like, you didn’t even  _try_  for the bucket.”  He extends a hand to brush a stray curl of hair back from Feferi’s face, then realizes that his hand is literally dripping with tyrian purple.  He reconsiders.  “All in the process of majorly coldbulging me, by the way,” he adds accusingly.  “ED.”

“Wwhat, Sol,” you shoot back, thrusting your chin out at him.  Fef is idly swinging your hands back and forth, humming, which maybe makes you feel less threatening than you would like, but this blackrom has gone off the rails for long fuckin’ enough.  “You had your fuckin’ lowwblood hand up Fef’s nook the wwhole time.  Don’t you glub at me.”  You manage to glare at him past Feferi’s voluminous hair, and you can see traces of that ugly mustard color spreading across his cheeks.  Good.  Fef giggles as your bulge, lying soft and limp in the purple liquid pooling between your bodies, begins to stir again, sliding against her own length. 

“You two are just incoralgible,” she says brightly, standing up on shaky legs.  She bends over gracefully and slips her underwear off over the bucket, letting even more liquid spill out of the sodden article of clothing and from her nook.  “I think I’ve kept you apart long enough.  But you betta put on a good show,” she adds deviously, sitting down next to you against the couch.  “I’ll be grading!”

“Howw do you plan on gradin’ sex, Fef?” you ask, slipping your own underwear and pants off.  Both articles of clothing are soaked and kind of sticky, and you chuck them off somewhere, not really caring where they land.  Not like it’s really your hive anyway.  “It’s kinda subjectivve, isn’t it?”

“Hm,” Feferi says, nodding thoughtfully.  “Well, how about this?”  She holds a finger out and, before you can react, runs it up between her breasts, coating it with your genetic material.  Rich purple disappears between her swollen lips, a quick dart of a tyrian tongue visible against grey skin, and she indicates your bulge.  You swallow hard, knowing without looking that it’s perked up almost back to full readiness.  “Fifteen points,” she says sweetly, licking a small patch of purple left on the shiny black of her upper lip.  “Now focus!”

“Wwha?” you manage dimly.  “Focus on wwhat?”  And then Sollux is there,  _very very close_  to your face, and he’s wearing a smarmy grin that finishes off what Fef started.  You slam your forehead into his and stare him down, or at least as well as you can stare down your kismesis while he’s wearing pants and you’re not and you’re still horny as fuck.  “You got somethin’ to say, Sol?” you ask, trying hard to ignore his nose brushing against yours.  It’s a bit of a cliché, but you doubt Sol’s in the mood for much more verbal foreplay.

Nope.  “Spread ‘em,” he says, without preamble.  You open your mouth to protest that you will do no such thing, and in a flash his finger is inside your mouth – a finger stained purple with Fef’s genetic material.  It’s thick and both sweet and salty, nothing at all like you’d imagined (and of course you’ve imagined.  Puberty was a difficult time), but it somehow manages to taste exactly like her.  His finger’s back out of your mouth again before you can bite him – your teeth slam into each other painfully – and then he’s on top of you, his hands in your hair as he forces your head back and kisses you.  “I don’t give a fuck about FF’s stupid grading,” he hisses as you grab his wrists and fight his grip.  “Your nook is mine, Ampora.  Legs open, I said.”

Fucking lowblood!  Giving you orders like he expects them to be obeyed, and  _why the glubbing hell is it turning you on so much_   _you are not Zahhak._   “Fuck no,” you bite out, managing to wrestle his hands away from your horns without any real effort.  “Make me.” 

He rolls his eyes.  “Real nice, ED,” he mutters, struggling against you for a few seconds.  “How long did that take you to come up with?”  You glance over at Fef, who shrugs apologetically and tilts her head to give Sollux the edge on that particular exchange.  Enough of  _that_  right here and now. 

You easily force Sollux over – like you said, he’s a skinny motherglubber – and land on top of him, a hand hard against his hot, sharp collarbone.  “Let’s get somefin straight here, Sol,” you growl.  “Lay dowwn a few ground rules about wwho’s really in charge here.”  You bite him hard enough to draw blood, and he hisses.  The noise is grating and repulsive, just like him, so you seal his lips with yours to shut him up.  His tongue quests into your mouth, and you let it pass without incident; plenty of horror stories about blackrom partners who took it too far and ended up nearly drowning in their kismesis’ blood from a stupid bite.  You do dig your nails into his back for it.  He grunts – you’ll admit that that sound, at least, is sexy – and, wait a minute, pries his hand from your chest, and, whoa, his hand is on your bulge and massaging it.  He does the wavy thing you used on Fef – cheater! – and you feel the strength slip right out of your knees.  In seconds, he’s back on top, and he’s situated himself directly between your legs. 

“You were saying, ED?” he asks mockingly, idly stroking your bulge.  Another shiver runs up your spine, and it takes you a moment to answer.

“I was sayin’, Sol,” you spit back, your tone as venomous as you can make it, “that you can go straight to hell an’ kiss your mutant fuckin’ ancestor hello wwhen you get there.”  Your bulge thrashes embarrassingly around Sollux’s stained hand, and he grins as he unfastens his jeans with the other, letting his own bulge escape.  It’s yellow, of course, and, perhaps three or four inches from the base, it bifurcates, continuing on into two thin hemibulges that terminate in little bullet-shaped heads; it glistens softly in the light as it wriggles.  Your nook is fully open now, almost dripping at the sight, and this fact does not escape Sollux.  He almost looks like he’s considering your very sexy one-liner for a moment, then shrugs.

“Works for me,” he says simply, and then oh, god, he’s inside you, stretching your nook open wide with the hot, muscular length of his bulge.  Not the full thing – you’re a virgin, Jegus – but enough to get the point across quite well, and for a moment the only sounds you can make are strangled gasps.  His bulge is inside you and pushing deeper, pressing on your shame globes with each movement, and you have to be careful not to bite your tongue as you clench your teeth. 

“Fuck,” he growls, hunching over you.  His nails are digging into your shoulder, and you reach up to grab his wrists as he leans in and mashes his lips against yours.  “Fuck, ED,” he rasps, biting at your lower lip between words.  That appears to be the only thing he has to say, as he buries his face in the crook of your neck and begins to thrust his hips.  His bulge is already deep inside you, and each thrust only loosens you up for more of him to slip in.  It feels amazing, even if it is Sol doing it to you, and you close your eyes, forgetting about the fight for a moment.

“Okay, Eridan, now just relax,” Fef says helpfully, patting you on the shoulder.  Her bulge is active again, wrapped around her wrist as she slowly works fingers in and out of her sopping nook.  “It’s gonna feel like a lot, but you can do it!  It’s actually a lot of fin once you get used to it.” 

Well, that doesn’t sound good.  “Used to what?” you ask warily, and then you feel it.  There’s a bump or something on Sollux’s bulge, and it’s pressing against your nook insistently with each thrust of Sollux’s hips and each quiet, breathy grunt he makes.  No, not a bump; it just widens out as the hemibulges join back together, which is hardly the weirdest thing you’ve seen today, but which does present a small problem, that being that Sollux is already filling you up.  A small raised ridge along the outside of one of his hemibulges is being rubbed into your shame globes, and you twitch as Sol gives a particularly rough thrust, pressing further into you than he has before.  “I don’t knoww if I can take it,” you say honestly.

“You can,” Feferi assures you cheerfully.  “Just try.  I think you’ll like it.”

“He already… likes it,” Sollux grunts, his breath hitching.  “Come on, Ampora.  Gonna let – ngh – a lowblood bulge show you up?”  His face is flushed hideous yellow, and his eyes are screwed up in exertion and pleasure.  It’s disgusting and vulgar, and you have to face it: you loathe Sollux Captor more than anyone else in the multiverse.  It’s odd how much easier it is to admit it to yourself than it was to get your feelings about Fef straightened out, but if no one has to die this time, you’ll gladly suffer a little honesty.  Even if it is fuckin’ embarrassing.  As if hearing your thoughts (and who knows, glubbin’ psychics), Sollux smirks and pushes your head back again, tracing his few remaining fangs across your skin to draw blood.  “I asked you a question, fishfuck,” he snarls.  "I can find another use for that pretty mouth of yours if you're not gonna use it to talk.”  Your bulge whips out, wrapping around his base, and you feel your nook contract around the writhing bulk of him.  God, it feels good to be hated, and you can’t avoid a moan.

“Like you could,” you reply as soon as you’re able to form words again.  “Showw me wwhat you’vve got, lowwblood.  I can take anythin’ you – oh, god, Sol!”  You cry out his name as he slams forward into you with everything he has, driving his bulge to the hilt – you feel your bone bulge settle against his stomach – and biting down hard on your collarbone.  It doesn’t even hurt; you can’t feel anything but Sollux’s magnificent filthy mutant bulge in you as his flesh slaps into yours, and you dig your nails into his cheek.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck…!”

Suddenly, Sollux’s teeth disappear from your shoulder, and you manage to sit up in time for Feferi, quick flashes of alluring grey skin visible through her curtain of silky hair, to straddle you and press you back up against the couch.  You can’t see very well, but from the sound he’s making, her tongue has just gone down Sollux’s throat.  She leans back into you a bit as he reciprocates, his hands crushing into her breasts, and she reaches down and disentangles your bulge from Sollux’s.  Stolen from its heat source, it writhes around – you’re a bit excited right now, okay? – and, with a happy cry from the girl herself, slips right into Feferi’s nook, sliding straight up almost to the base inside her.  You feel justified in whiting out for just a moment as sensation rushes through you: the heat of Fef and her comforting weight and Sollux’s bulge stretching your opening to its limit.  Unable to help yourself, you let out a loud moan as your hands fall to her hips, pulling her back into you instinctively.  She giggles and leans back, snuggling into you, and her walls give you a little squeeze. 

“You said you weren’t gonna do this, FF,” Sollux says, exasperated, and you have to bite your lip.  For all his annoyance, his hips are still working in and out as he bends to tongue her nipple.  You rest a hand on his head – way too tender a gesture, so you yank his hair a little – and he grunts into her chest, giving your thigh a pinch in return.  Feferi rubs the mark his fingers leave behind, and you roll your eyes as you rub her stomach in kind, just enjoying the feel of her skin on yours.

“Yeah, wway to kill the mood, Fef,” you say, trying hard to make it sound like a huff and not panting.  “Wwere you not seein’ wwhat wwas goin’ on there?  That wwas some smokin’ hot kismesitude you just interrupted.  I hope you’re happy.”  Full sentences – pretty impressive if you do say so yourself.  She twists to pout at you and begins to move her hips in time with Sol’s, her bulge reaching out to stroke his stomach.  It slips further down, four or five spines wrapping around you and beginning to stroke your length as her inquisitive tip reaches Sollux’s purple-slick bulges.  Sollux lets out a huff of breath as she twines around and between his hemibulges, too, and you draw blood from your lip biting it as the wrapped coils of her bulge press into your nook with the motion of his hips. 

“This seemed easier,” Feferi says, smiling.  She’s breathing harder now too, quick shallow breaths, and she begins to push back against your thrusts.  “And this way, everyone can be together… and everyone can be ha – aah!”  She cries out as you flex yourself inside of her – you can actually feel her stomach bulge out a little under your hand.  “Ah… and everyone can be happy,” she finishes, sighing.  Her hand covers yours on her stomach and she slips her fingers in between yours as well as the webbing allows, leaning forward to kiss Sollux again.  “Can you do that again, Eridan…?”

“Stole that from me, ED,” Sollux comments, flexing his bulges in different directions.  Feferi gives a little giggle-gasp as you let your head fall to the crook of her neck, squeezing her hand hard just to keep from crying out.  She squeezes back, sympathetic, as Sollux touches foreheads with you again.  “Don’t even know what you did, but I guaran-fucking-tee I do it better than you.  Maybe if you get on your knees and ask reel nice I’ll show you a trick or two later.”  You catch at his lips with your own, tasting the blood from the cuts left there, and press his jaw down into Fef’s shoulder.  She nibbles on his ear as he growls, and soon you can feel him moving easier in you as he begins to secrete genetic material.  Not a full release yet, but he grins through his heavy breathing and snags the bucket with his fingertips.  It’s already half-full with mixed purple, and you feel a rush of conflicting emotions as several things hit you at once.

First off, that’s  _your_ material, mixed together with Feferi’s.  It’s gorgeous, darker than her blood by a few shades, and it makes your vascular bladder hurt with pride, love and a few other emotions that rush by too quickly to identify.  Perhaps regret…?  But the confusion is swept away when you realize what Sollux intends to do, in tandem with the answer to something that has been bothering you since this whole encounter began.

“Sol, you can’t,” you gasp, fingers tightening on Fef’s again.  She moans as you move in her, and you feel something unbearable starting to build up in the walls of your nook.  “That’s… that’s a matesprit bucket.  You can’t be fuckin’ serious.”

Sollux grunts and buries his head in Feferi’s chest, his whole body starting to move in time with his thrusts, which are slowing down and coming with more force.  “Just… nggh… watch me, Ampora,” he gasps, scratching your hips as he grips you  _hard_.  Feferi holds him as his breath hitches, and then there’s a flood of warmth inside you as the pores along his length spurt his seed into you.  Sollux lets out another shuddering grunt, dragging his nails down your legs, and you throw your head back with a curse as your shame globes gush around the tangled knot of him and Feferi.  Contractions ripple up through your stomach and the warmth of Sollux’s genetic material radiates down through your legs, and you let your forehead rest on the back of Feferi’s head as your hips slowly piece themselves back together.

“Don’t stop,” she says urgently, squeezing your hand again, and you dazedly oblige, twisting around inside of her tight, soaking nook as well as you can.  “Oh cod.  Oh god, oh god, Eridan, Sollux, hold me…!”  She cries out as she orgasms, her genetic material shooting from each of the spines along her length and practically painting herself and Sollux with her lovely purple.  Your arms are around Sollux’s back and his are around yours, holding you tightly against her back, and you can hear and feel her quiet whimpers as she thrusts her hips desperately down against yours.  After a few moments, she sighs, relaxing, and you let her go, leaning back into the couch.  Feferi leans back with you, and your arms settle around her waist.  “You both pass,” she says dreamily, smiling. 

Sollux gives you a pinch to get your attention and slips the bucket under your hips.  It’s enough to make you blush again.  “Wwe’re not mixin’, Sol,” you snap, leaning to glare at him.  “That’s disgustin’ and pervverted.”  And it is, you insist to yourself to combat the blush.  There’s a reason it’s really hard to find mixing videos on the Trollnet.  Not… that you look or anything.

Sollux shrugs.  “Only brought the one,” he says simply, pulling his bulges from your body.  Drops of tyrian purple fall from Feferi’s spines and spot the surface as your mingled material, a rich chocolate brown, flows from your nook and into the bucket.  You almost want to turn away, but watching the colors mix as the liquid settles is sciencebinding.   The end result is a warm, earthy plum color, nowhere near as hideous as you had expected, and you sit and look at it for a moment while your bulge softens and slips from Feferi. 

“I know we don’t have to worry about the drones anymore,” Feferi murmurs as she sits down next to you and snuggles into your side.  The excess material is gone again – maybe a trick of her friends? – and her bare skin is cool and dry against you.  It’s comfortable, and you rest your head on hers.  “But I’m glad we went to the trouble.  It’s a pretty color,” she continues, blushing.  “I like it.”

“You know,” says Sollux, sitting down on her other side and throwing an almost companionable arm around your shoulders, “I kinda like it too.”  Feferi reaches out her hand, waving it urgently at him, and he obligingly laces his fingers with hers.  “It looks weird as shit and it took a metric fuckton of effort to set up” – he gooses your shoulder and you flip him off – “but it’s not bad.  It works, if you squint.”  He leans forward to rest his mouth on Feferi’s shoulder and falls silent, and so does the room.  After a few moments you recognize the sudden tension in her back and his arm, and it becomes pretty obvious what they’re waiting for.

“Yeah,” you say quietly, nodding slowly.  “I hate to say it, but… I think you’re right.”  There’s an almost imperceptible change in the air as they both relax, relieved smiles spreading across their faces, and you can’t help but smile too.  “So… wwhat noww?”  You rub Feferi’s shoulder, holding her closer, but it’s suddenly hard to look at them.  “I knoww I’m just bein’ a glub again, but I really wwanna apologize again… for evveryfin, really.”

“Are you gonna have a fucking existential crisis every five minutes for the next sweep?  ‘Cause that’s gonna get old really fast,” Sollux sighs, patting you roughly on the shoulder.  “How about this, ED.  When you piss us off, we’ll tell you.  And when we piss you off, you tell us.”  He blushes a little, and Feferi leans against him, giggling.  “This isn’t one of KK’s bullshit romance novels.  We’re allowed to actually talk about feelings and stuff and not wallow around angsting.”

Feferi nods.  “Right!  And if something feels fishy, don’t feel like you have to keep it inside.  We’ll listen!”  She takes your hand in both of hers and places it against her chest, right between her breasts.  Her skin is cold and soft, and her body is whole and solid; you can feel her central vascular pump beating gently.  She doesn’t say anything, but she smiles up at you as the proof of her life feathers against your palm, and she doesn’t have to say anything as you embrace her.  Sollux puts his arms around you both with a long-suffering sigh, but you can see him kind of smiling, which will have to be good enough.  “It doesn’t matter what happened before,” Feferi whispers into your chest, closing her eyes for a moment.  “We’re all together now, and that’s what’s important.”  She falls quiet, and the three of you sit still, skin to skin, letting the past wash away.

After a while, Feferi sits up, nearly uppercutting you with her forehead.  “Oh, we should go,” she says, disentangling herself from you and Sollux.  She stands up and stretches, then turns to your dresser and fishes through it.  She somehow pulls out her own clothes – dream logic, who knows – and starts getting dressed, tossing you and Sollux your own pants and shirts.  Sollux catches his bundle deftly, but you fumble yours because you’re busy checking to make sure he’s not wearing one of your sigil shirts.  There is a _limit_.

“Go?  Go wwhere?” you ask, pulling your pants on.  You cock an eyebrow at Feferi, but she’s already pulling your cape out of the dresser as well.  Sollux rolls his eyes.  Cod, you love that girl.  “Havve… havve you found the others?  Who’s evven still alivve?”

“When AA and I saw them last, it was just KK, TZ, KN, and GZ left,” Sollux explains, his voice slightly muffled by the shirt over his face.  “And some humans – the red kid and the creepy purple chick.”  You stiffen – the witch!  What a missed opportunity! – but even that’s more than you expected, and it almost comes as a relief.  “AA and FF can get around out here, since she’s a god and FF’s a weirdo” – he ducks a balled-up sock without missing a beat – “but the rest of us have to stay in the bubbles, so they won’t be too hard to round up.  Especially with FF’s friends helping,” he adds with a grimace.

“Round up,” you say, frowning.  Come to think of it… “Sol, wwhy did you say a swweep earlier?  Seems a little specific if wwe’re gonna be dead for the next eternity.”  He cinches his shoelaces and looks over at Fef, who has a smile spreading across her face.

“All I can say is that the horrorterrors have a plan,” she says coyly, taking your hands and pulling you to your feet.  She picks up your scarf from where it landed on the back of the chair and winds it back around your neck, giving you a quick peck as her arms go around you.  She helps Sollux up as well, then catches your hand again to lead you both toward the door.  “It might not make much sense now, and there might be some things that seem scary or hard at first, but they believe in us!”  You and Sollux exchange a look, and she pouts.  “Yeah, I know how you feel about them.  But  _I_  think it will work, too,” she says, looking between the two of you.  “And I’m not just saying that!  But we’re gonna be busy, and we need to get started.  There’s so much to do.”  She raises her hand and pushes open the door of your respiteblock.  Instead of the familiar old, weathered floorboards of your hallway, black space yawns just over the threshold, so impenetrable that it almost looks like a solid wall of darkness.  “Come on!”

“Fef-” you begin, but she’s already moving and, pulled along by her highblood strength, so are you.  The darkness feels cold, like the deep ocean at night, and as soon as you break through the threshold you are struck with the sensation of being surrounded on all sides by emptiness.  You bob gently in the darkness as Feferi laughs and kicks her feet like a swimmer, taking as much of a look around as you dare.  It’s not as bad as you had expected; hundreds of thousands of points of light fleck the distant void like stars, brightly shining dreambubbles like the one you’ve just departed.  You get the feeling that scale, as a concept, means less than nothing out here, which of course only makes you feel damnably small.  Trying to be surreptitious about sticking closer to Feferi doesn’t work, of course, and she smiles.

“Don’t be afraid, Eridan,” she says, rubbing the back of your hand with her thumb.  She doesn’t let go of Sollux, and you notice that he has a pretty solid grip on her as well.  “Once you get used to it out here, it’s reely nice!  Isn’t it pretty?”  She looks around, her eyes shining with joy like it’s the first time she’s ever been outside the bubbles.  You’re just about to admit that okay, maybe it isn’t so bad when motion catches your eye.  You turn to look and see a huge dark shape drifting across the starfield, ill-defined even against the backdrop of light – and you’re glad for the mystery, because what you  _can_  see is long, oily black tentacles, serrated beaks bristling from between them like shards of glass, and hundreds of eyes that burn across the eternal distance between you.  One of the creature’s tentacles passes  _behind_  the smallest dots of light you can see, and you look away, feeling a bit sick to your stomach.  Feferi waves.

“Well, let’s get going,” she says, after a moment.  “We’ve got some fishing to do, and the others may not want to come with us even after we find them.  They might be happy where they are, or they might just be tired of fighting.”  She looks sad for a moment, then presses on.  “But we have to convince them, because if we don’t, then all of it – everyfin! - was for nothing.  Aradia is helping too – I actually don’t think we’d be able to make it in time without her…” She trails off, looking around at the identical dreambubbles as if she can see something you can’t. 

“Make it in time  _wwhere_ , Fef?” you snap, frowning.  “I don’t mind wworkin’ for the horrorterrors if you say it’s a good idea.  I don’t evven mind herdin’ a bunch a our surly dead friends.  But wwhere are wwe bringin’ them once wwe havve them?”

Feferi smiles and lifts Sollux’s hand in her own, casting a fond glance at him.  He floats around to pat you on the shoulder with his free hand, then point off into the distance – fortunately, not in a direction with any horrorterrors.  There doesn’t appear to be anything there at all, actually, and you open your mouth to say so when Sollux sighs.  “Look closer, ED,” he suggests, rolling his eyes.  You put a knuckle to your mouth and squint as hard as you can… and there it is.  A tiny white dot, just barely visible, streaking across the blackness, tearing a jagged line of yellow in the void behind it.  The color looks familiar, and you glance at Sol.  He nods shortly.  “Exactly what you think it is,” he confirms.  “And if we’re going there for the reason I think we’re going there… well.  Shit’s gonna get interesting in a sweep or so.”  He grins wickedly.

“So that’s the plan,” Feferi says.  She looks anxious to get moving, but turns to you.  “Are you… you do want to help us, right?  It might not be easy to convince everyone, and sometimes it might be painful, but we have to.  For them, and for everyone.”

“My queen,” you say, and Feferi smiles.  She throws her arms around you – Sollux swears as he gets tossed around by her strength – and then she turns to face a cluster of bubbles some distance away. 

“Tavros is somewhere in there,” she says.  And with that you’re blurring into motion, taking the next step on the longest road you’ve ever walked – across space, across time, across both and neither at once, through blood and death and laughter and hardship and love, to bear witness to the death of a Demon at the end and the beginning of all things.  And your hand is in hers, and hers in his, and his in yours, and for the first time in a long time you find again what you had lost: Hope.


End file.
